


BOOM.

by oddmonster



Category: The Tick - All Media Types
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-08
Updated: 2013-01-08
Packaged: 2017-11-24 04:49:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/630603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oddmonster/pseuds/oddmonster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time American Maid met the Ottoman Empress, sparks flew. Mainly because Emma kept blowing things up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	BOOM.

**Author's Note:**

> The Ottoman Empress starred in exactly one Tick episode, [Evil Sits Down For a Moment](http://www.thetick.ws/car20.html). In the episode, she and American Maid fought over a wiener named Die Fledermaus. Here's what could've happened instead.

Heat.

That's what she remembered most about that first time: flickering heat, pregnant with destruction.

The Ottoman Empress, her very own Emma, had blown up a department store and flaming twinsets had rained down over The City while rogue furniture caroused in the streets, rejoicing. By the time May arrived on the scene, a dining set had formed a chain of chairs to lead smoldering recliners on their tottering way to safety as the flames grew, licking the air like tongues. She’d run across the rooftops, all the way from her tiny apartment downtown, cursing Die Fledermaus the whole way. _He said he’d call. The next time The City was in danger, he promised to call me._ Yet here she was seeing the fire on the ten o’clock news, pulling on her costume and running through the night, leaping from building to building, trying to catch up. All of it in heels, too.

And then, her.

Imperious and intimidating and cape-wearing and all that other stuff that set them apart from citizens, heroes and villains alike, and Emma had just stood there, surrounded by a litter of loyal home furnishings, a brown column of smoke billowing out of a hole in the ruined rooftop at her back -- she’d just stood there, arms folded across her chest, watching May run.

It should’ve made her feel good, a woman like Emma watching her, looking the way she did, but instead, she stopped cold, panting, seeing red. _What was it about capes, anyway?_ Frustrated and angry, she’d just snapped.

The first shoe had glanced off Emma's bodice and fallen useless to the gravel at her feet.

The second Emma caught one-handed.

She’d looked from it to May. Their eyes had met across the gap between the buildings and May had felt something _move_ in her, something give. The curl of Emma's lip, the arch of her perfectly manicured brows as she stalked across the roof, red stilettos crunching the gravel. Grinding it beneath her feet. Coming closer.

And May standing barefoot, dumb and undone, just watching Emma approach. Smelling smoke acrid with polyester and the American dream, tickling the back of her throat.

With a snap of her fingers, Emma commanded an imposing bookcase to lie flat between the buildings. A bridge. Purring, she crossed to May’s side. Walked right up to her, right into her space and with that one copper curl hanging loose over her forehead, reached out and laid her fingers along May’s cheek. Cool fingertips, strangely at odds with the smoke and the sparks and all that heat.

“So,” Emma murmured, “you wanna get out of here? I’ve got a bed you wouldn’t believe. Several, in fact.” One perfect eyebrow arched and May, her breath in her throat, tiny rocks nipping the soles of her feet, knew at once what the real question was. And the only possible answer. “Try to keep up,” she whispered.

Emma grinned, cheeks coloring.

Feet pounding over the rooftop, May headed for the edge, and jumped.

\---

She landed rough and fell, automatically rolling into it, spraying up tiny stones that fell down the front of her stiff bodice. Shakily regaining her feet, May looked back at the gap and gasped.

Emma floated on a small settee -- a trick she refused to explain even now, no matter how many times May asked -- and hovered next to May, sitting one leg crossed over the other, perfectly comfortable and at ease while May picked gravel out of the tops of her stockings. “You,” May growled at her. “You’re a supervillain.”

“Guilty as charged. _Én teljesen magával ragadta és a parancsot._ ” She hopped lightly from the settee, alighting far too close to May and tucking that damn curl behind her ear.

May thought she might throw Die Fledermaus off a building just to know if that curl was as soft as it looked. Instead, she cleared her throat. “Cease your assault on The City,” she managed. “Your demands will never be met. Turn yourself in now and avoid further penalties.”

Emma laughed long and loud, bent over with her arms crossed over her narrow waist, the settee shaking with silent laughter behind her. Then she said simply, “All right. I agree. I surrender. But I surrender only to you, _megértetted_?”

“You surrender.”

“I do. You have me, completely.” She stalked closer. “The only question now is, what are you planning to do with me?”

May swallowed hard. The Empress was curved in all the right places, stacked in front and back she held herself like she knew how to use it. The very definition of what May looked for in every crowded bar and over-loud nightclub. A woman like that, topped with a sharp, challenging chin and a swarm of ginger curls piled high on her head, looking like it might topple over at any minute. May got distracted, picturing them damp and splayed across crisp white sheets in some old, settled house far, far away from The City. “You’re under arrest,” she managed with someone else’s voice.

“But I’ve already surrendered,” Emma replied. “I’m yours. Do you really need me in cuffs? Or what if...” She made a soft sound, like a butterfly swallowing. “What if I simply give myself to you here?” 

May shook her head. “I should probably read you your rights.”

“Oh, I know them. The right to remain...silent, unless you make me give it up. Anything I say, any sound I make, can and will be used against me later, possibly in a court of law. Possibly...somewhere else.” She licked her lips and May thought of those white sheets again.

“I have the right to speak to an attorney. If I could not afford one, one would be, how you say, thrust upon me?” Emma rose to her feet. “Tell me, when was it you passed the bar, mm? Do you keep it up as well as you keep up that...ah. _Szar. Hogy mondják ezt_? The thing covering your--” She cupped her hands in front of her chest. “What you wear for dressing like you clean other people’s houses?”

 _This is not happening,_ May told herself firmly. _She did not just say that._ “Bustier. It’s um, it’s called a bustier.” _Shit_ , she thought. _I ummed_.

“Bustier. Beautiful.” Emma turned her hands around and cupped May’s chest, over the stiff, molded fabric, over the whalebone stays. “Beautiful.”

“Bullshit,” May said. Then May leaned in and kissed her.

It was like they were kids discovering candy, eager lips and tongues and breathless, gleeful enthusiasm, something May hadn’t expected. Behind them, something blew up, and May hoped whatever it was, some burning part of it fell on Die Fledermaus.

By the time they broke apart, May had forgotten all about anything that wasn’t the soft touch of Emma’s lips, the feel of her hands on May’s neck, the curve of her corseted back under May’s palms and all around her like a cloud, the smell of cinnamon and freshly shaved pine.

They stared at each other for a moment. In the background sirens screamed and spotlights raked the sky. Then the helicopter arrived. It rose in the background like an angry wasp, rotor-beat pummeling the night. Out of the corner of her eye, May watched it hover, several buildings away, sweeping the rooftop with a spotlight. Methodically searching, and moving closer.

“Don’t go weird on me,” May said finally. “I mean, I don’t want--”

“It’s too late,” Emma answered. “I’m a supervillain dedicated to the rein of chaos and the overthrow of order and function, the vision of a world dominated by fine home and office furnishings. It’s safe to say I arrived already...a little weird.”

“But why furniture, why not...shoes, or beetles or...or just leaving things the way they are!”

“Where there’s change, there’s growth! And did you know? There are people building furniture out of milk crates, out of...scrap wood and books! Completely ignoring multiple centuries of craftsmanship and innovation in decorative furnishings.” Emma blew the curl up off her forehead. Besides, the beetles, they are overrated.”

“Well when you put it that way, it absolutely justifies the property damage and loss of life.”

In what would become a recurring motif in their relationship, Emma’s nostrils flared and her eyes blazed with anger. “Property.”

 _Shit. Shit shit shit_ , May thought. _This is why I’m single._ Over Emma’s shoulder, the building burned, flames licking the belly of the clouds, pregnant with reflected light. The helicopter swooped closer, searchlight in motion, rotors pounding. A cloud of dust rose beneath it, rising up to meet the cloud of smoke. The air tasted burnt. May’s cheeks burned. _This is why I don’t even have a cat_ , she thought. _I am this awesome_.

Emma leaned in close again and May braced for impact. But instead, Emma whispered, “He’ll never understand you when you’re righteous. Not like I will.”

“You? Understand me? Please. You’re a villain You’re....you’re evil.”

“ _Az én szegény kis szorgalmas_. All this big noise to protect shopping for the low low lowest price in imported carved hardwoods. All this to protect people who wouldn’t know cocobolo or pink ivory from particle boards.” She spat the words. “All this to protect people who cover furniture in plastic, refusing to let it move or breathe or be touched. This is who you’re protecting, these sheep with charge cards, people who wouldn’t know an armoire from the Army. Them! You protect them and leave fine home furnishings to fend for themselves?”

“That’s what I do,” May said woodenly. “I protect.”

Emma grinned and tucked that damn curl behind her ear while May thought very clearly: _the kissing has made me stupid. That’s the only explanation._ Movement behind Emma’s shoulder caught her attention. A patrolman peered over the edge of the roof then ducked back down again. May sighed.

“Ottoman Empress!” The cop pulled himself up over the lip of the roof and, taking his gun out, promptly lost his grip and fell heavily to the gravel. “Oof! Hey, wait--okay. Ottoman Empress!” The gun fell to the gravel and skittered away. The patrolman swore.

Emma kissed May’s cheek, light and sweet. “You should get a cat,” she whispered.

“Maybe I’m more of a dog person.”

“Maybe,” Emma said, “but I say I know you better.”

“Ottoman Empress! Stop, in the name of the law! I am charging you--” The patrolman started coughing. He bent double, arms over his stomach as he wheezed and gasped for air. The two women ignored him.

Emma leaned forward again, her cheek brushing May’s. “There is a bomb, on the fourth floor. If the furniture cannot be free, it cannot be left in chains. I cannot permit this. Just as I cannot permit you to throw yourself away on a man who is in love only with himself.”

May drew a sharp breath.

“You don’t know him,” she said at last. “You’ve never--”

“And I never will,” Emma answered. “Neither will you. But when you come to your senses, kitten, I’ll be waiting.” Abruptly, she straightened and stalked away. A recliner rolled smoothly over the gravel ready and waiting for when Emma sat, regal and composed, her cape perfectly smooth underneath her. The chair lifted off the rooftop as if it was the most natural thing in the world and began to rise into the night.

 _This is how it’s gonna be,_ May knew in an instant. _Danger and excitement and unpleasant surprises._ She watched Emma soar, borne away on the mysterious currents of her own power.

“Ottoman...Em...press...” The patrolman made it upright and staggered over to stand next to May. “You’re under...arrest.” He followed May’s gaze, watching Emma disappear into the smoke. “Aw, nuts.”

The chopper was drawing closer now, almost on top of the building. _There’s a bomb,_ May remembered. _On the fourth floor._ She clutched the patrolman’s arm. “This place is gonna blow. We’ve gotta get out of here.”

“Maybe we should wait for--”

 _Damn rookies._ May dragged him with her as she ran for the edge. She didn’t doubt Emma’s word, that she’d destroy the ground they stood on to make a point. The edge of the rooftop came up at them too quickly and May ran, hard, letting go of the patrolman at last. She had no idea how much time was left. All she could think about was that curl, right in the middle of Emma’s forehead, damp and lank and begging to be touched. “Jump!” she yelled over her shoulder. Then the chasm between the buildings loomed, May pedaling her legs frantically over the dark, sharp drop.

She hit the other rooftop and kept going, momentum driving her on bare feet. The air felt heavy all of a sudden, and too warm.

 _Huh,_ May thought. _Maybe I am a cat person after all._

Then the night blossomed with heat and noise, knocking May off her feet, sending her skittering across the gravel. Her palms and cheek stung where she hit, but May’d been hit before and knew how to roll.


End file.
